


Memories In Permanent Ink

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Leverage
Genre: M/M, Porn Battle, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec finds out why Eliot's been so secretive and what he's been hiding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories In Permanent Ink

At first, Alec just plain doesn't get why it's always lights off with Eliot.

Eliot never gets undressed in front of him and he's always up and gone before Alec wakes up, and they never, ever shower together, no matter how messy and sweaty they've gotten.

He doesn't get it -- Eliot is obviously attracted to him and he thinks he's made it pretty clear he's attracted back, so why is Eliot so against just being naked together? Alec can't imagine a world in which Eliot is self-conscious about his body, so what is it?

After a while, Alec gets mad. Whatever Eliot's reasons, the least he could do would be to tell Alec what they are. They've been together long enough, saved each other's asses on jobs, been there for enough beers, basketball games, nightmares, and orgasms. Enough quiet, easy moments of just existing together and enough screaming matches. So what is still so secret that Eliot is refusing to share even the idea of it? Alec's not going to press him for secrets, but even the acknowledgement of it would let him know that Eliot trusts him a little.

Then Alec gets vocal. "Why aren't we allowed to be naked together?" he asks one night, when they were lying in the dark in his bed.

Eliot snorts. "And what are we right now?" His hands move under the sheets, brushing softly over Alec's ass and up his back.

Alec sighs and rolls over to face him, even if it's pitch black and he can't even make out Eliot's shape, let alone details. "I mean, why am I not allowed to see you naked? You've seen me naked."

"Because you get naked at the drop of a hat," Eliot points out. "Look, it's not something I do."

"Oh, but you'll sleep in my bed and fuck me and all the rest? Those are things you do?"

"Can we not have this fight?" Eliot asks tightly. It's less of question and more of a statement and despite his anger, Alec lets it drop. He reaches for Eliot's shoulder in the dark and ends up smacking him in the face a little. Eliot just kisses his fingers before tugging him closer and they fall asleep like two cats curled into each other.

Three days later, Eliot shows up unannounced. Alec doesn't mind, nor is he surprised. Eliot usually sends a text a few seconds before he knocks on the door, so basically all his trips are unannounced.

"Hey," Alec says when Eliot barges in and drops his overnight bag on the floor.

"Hey. Bedroom."

Alec thinks about arguing because that's really fucking presumptuous and he's right in the middle of a heated forum discussion about the new Avengers movie, but Eliot's already kicked off his boots and disappeared through the bedroom door. Alec sighs, dumps his wireless keyboard on the couch, and follows.

Eliot is standing in the middle of Alec's bedroom with his shirt in his hands.

"Oh, El..."

Eliot's looking anywhere but at Alec. "Look, shut up. There's this thing. I never showed you because..."

Eliot is very often quiet, but this might be the first time Alec's ever seen him at a loss for words.

"What is it, man?" Alec asks. He sheds his own clothes to try and make Eliot feel more at ease and thinks briefly of Eliot's argument that he gets naked too easily. Maybe that's a fair point.

"Too many reminders," Eliot says with a sigh. He holds his hand out to Alec. "C'mere."

They're kissing and the skin on skin feels so much better now that he can see Eliot's skin and he's surreptitiously checking him for scars.

They tumble onto the bed and a few seconds later, Alec gets his first look at Eliot's dick and it's pretty glorious.

"Fuck me," Eliot says, rough and growling in Alec's ear. He really doesn't need to say it twice. He's on his knees with his hands flat against wall above the bed before Alec really understands what's going on. Being in bed with Eliot is a lot like being in the car with Eliot; he drives so goddamn fast.

About four milliseconds later, it becomes abundantly clear to Alec why Eliot had been reluctant for happy naked sharing times. The ink is so dark it's like it's been freshly splashed there, like his fingers will come away wet if he tries to touch it.

It's a tree, so detailed and realistic looking, stretching its branches across Eliot's back. Alec is amazed and shocked, and he just stares at it, tracing its leaves and branches with his eyes, still so afraid to touch it, until Eliot mumbles about him taking too long and to get on with it.

Alec fucks him roughly, because that's the way Eliot likes it best, but the whole time, he's staring at Eliot's tattoo. The longer he stares at it, the more real it seems to become. The leaves shake on their branches when Eliot's muscles shift under his skin and Alec is fucking mesmerized.

Eliot steals one of Alec's hands and holds it to his mouth, alternately kissing his palm and biting at his wrist and Alec ends bent over across him. It makes the sex a lot more awkward, but the closeness is nice. Eliot's back is smooth and hot beneath him, and objectively Alec knows it's the same back he's been running his hands down for the last eight months, but it feels somehow different.

Later that night, much later, after Eliot's gone to sleep and has been snoring softly for hours, Alec's still awake, staring at the ceiling fan. He knows it's the ceiling fan because the bedroom door is open and light from the kitchen is spilling in. It's the first time Alec's ever been able to watch Eliot sleep.

He's gorgeous, really, but he looks sad when he's asleep. Alec slips out of bed and goes out into the living room. Something's been niggling away at his mind since earlier and he surfs Tumblr mindlessly for a little while until it solidifies into a thought.

It takes some digging, but not as much as he thought it would. Interpol kept a database of tattoos related to pretty much every organized crime ring in the world and Alec only has to click through two or three menus before he sees what he was looking for. Well, not looking for it, exactly. He's hoping he won't find anything, that maybe Eliot's secret childhood dream had been tree-hugger or something, but there's the photo on his monitor, as clear as day.

He reads the description under the picture and feels queasy. He gets it, finally, why Eliot didn't want him to see. Alec forces himself to close the tab, but he can't stop seeing the words.

He always knew Eliot's done bad shit, but this seems like inarguable proof. Something's different now, it has to be. There's no way he's going to be able to look at Eliot the same way he used to.

"Hey," Eliot says from the doorway to the bedroom. "Come back to bed."

Alec's looking at his hands, trying to find the words to say or the courage to look up.

"You get what it all means now?" Eliot asks after a few moments of silence. His voice is flat. "I should go."

"Don't," Alec says, even though a little part of him thinks it would be a good idea. "Let's just... We'll talk about it in the morning."

"I don't want to talk about it with you. Ever. There are things that you just don't need to know."

Alec stops halfway across the room. "Really? Since when do you get to decide what I need to know?"

Eliot still looks half asleep, which would be adorable if Alec wasn't suddenly so mad and unsure. "Hardison, come on. I don't know what you read, but I'm assuming it told you what it all means."

Alec nods stiffly.

"Then do you really need to know more than that? Look, I'll get out, leave you alone, fuck, I'll tell Nate I quit, if that's what will make you feel better. Just can we not do the names and dates shit? I can't handle you looking at me like that, or worse."

"What would be worse?" Alec asks. He wants Eliot to give him something. To get mad and defensive and bitchy like he normally does, for him to spit 'fuck off, Hardison' or just leave or anything. Anything but stand there and look utterly tired.

"You _not_ looking at me. Or hating me. Being afraid of me." He seems like he might continue his list, but doesn't.

Alec knows he should let it drop, but he also knows that he won't be any happier not knowing. He'll be the same amount of uncomfortable either way, so he might as well hear it said out loud. "So, each leaf on the tree is a person you killed?"

"A person I killed while I was involved with... them."

If Eliot's not even using the name of the group he worked for, Alec knows it's bad. But the way he phrased it brings another set of questions to light. "Wait, so you've killed people since then? Before then?"

"Yeah." Eliot's awake now, wide awake, and has his eyes fixed firmly on Alec. He's got that tense look like there's about to be a brawl, that tightness in his shoulders that usually means a bad dream.

 _But we're not waking up,_ Alec thinks bitterly.

"But that was for the army."

"Yeah. And killing is killing," Eliot says. His eyes flash with anger, and Alec has to stop himself from drawing back. "Just because the government thinks it was okay doesn't mean I do."

It feels like a million years before Alec can get the next question out. "How many... How many leaves are on your tree?"

Eliot sighs and scrubs his hands over his face. "I'm going to go," he says again, but this time he actually moves. He heads back into the bedroom and Alec only catches a glimpse at the tree full of leaves before he disappears.

Alec knows who Eliot used to work for, what circles he used to run in, so it's not hard to imagine the kind of shit that he had to do to earn those leaves. It's even hard to stop imagining it once he starts. Eliot's dressed and heading for the door.

"That was a long, long time ago," Eliot says without turning to look at Alec. "I wouldn't recognize that man if I saw him in the street."

Alec doesn't say anything and he doesn't try to stop Eliot when he leaves.

\--

Nate says the next morning that Eliot's taken a job overseas and he'll be back in a week or so.

Alec spends the next eight days feeling like he's about to be sick. After the first two, he realizes it's because he feels like a complete asshole and because he misses Eliot.

Eliot shows up on the eighth night, letting himself into Alec's apartment. If he's shocked to find Alec up at four am, he doesn't show it.

"Hey," Alec says, instantly dropping the video game controller and sliding over the back of the couch. "How was your trip?"

"Fine," Eliot says.

"Good, good. I, uh. I missed you," Alec says. He knows he's sounds awkward and childish, but then Eliot says, "Yeah, did you?" and he sounds childish too, so Alec doesn't feel so bad about it.

"Of course. Eliot. I know I was a little bit freaked out before, but mostly..."

"Mostly?"

Alec steps in close and takes both of Eliot's hands in his. "Mostly I don't care about what you did. I mean, so long as you promise you won't do it again. But I don't want it to be a thing. A thing that ruins what we've got."

"Ah. That kind of thing, yeah. We wouldn't want that."

Alec drops Eliot's hands and kisses him instead. "Shut up."

Eliot kisses him back, a little harder. Alec is not ashamed to admit later that he purrs when Eliot bites at his lip.

"Can we go to bed and not talk about things?"

"We could," Eliot says, naturally agreeable when Alec was working his hand down the front of his jeans. "We should."

Once they land on the bed, it's just a tangle of hands, both anxious to touch and feel after more than a week apart. Despite Alec's best efforts to get Eliot to fuck him, Eliot seems more interested in not doing that and instead just drives Alec out of his fucking mind with teasing.

Finally, they work into some kind of rhythm with their cocks pressed together, one of Eliot's hands wrapped around them both almost a little too tightly but it's okay because good god, _the friction._ His other hand is rubbing little circles on Alec's back and Alec's arms are just a mess of flailing and trying not to get in the way because he can never contain himself when they're like this.

There's no fighting for position or power, it's just both of them, together. Alec wants to say something, to apologize again and to tell Eliot's okay. He can't get the words out. Either they're too sappy for his brain to allow, or it's because the tip of Eliot's dick is rubbing right at that sensitive place on the underside of his, all hot and hard and slick with precome.

"Fuck," he manages, settling his palm flat against Eliot's chest. "Fuck, fuck, yes."

He's getting close and that much is obvious. Eliot laughs and ruts against him just a little faster and then Alec is coming over Eliot's hand and dick.

"I love you," he blurts out, fingers flexing against Eliot's chest. "Fuck, I just..."

Eliot shushes him and focuses on his own orgasm, still holding Alec's dick tight against his. 

Alec's groaning and trying not to scream even though he really wants to because he's way too sensitive for this shit. He digs his nails in Eliot's shoulder, hard, not caring if he draws little crescent moons of blood or not. "Jesus, fuck," he grunts between gasps until finally Eliot lets him go and comes across his stomach.

It's still a few moments before Alec can get it together enough to smile. "Thanks a lot."

"No problem," Eliot says. He rolls onto his stomach and tosses his arm across Alec's chest.

They lie like that for a long time in the semi-dark of the bedroom. Alec frees his hand from between them and starts to trace the outlines of the tree on Eliot's back. Eliot rolls his shoulders, like he's trying to shake Alec off but he's focused on what he's doing. Eliot settles eventually and lets Alec touch him.

"So, you love me?" he asks, after Alec wasn't sure how long.

"Yeah. I guess."

"Wait, you guess?' Eliot's laughing. He moves against Alec, flipping him so his back is against the wall and Eliot's taking up all his personal space in front. "You _guess?_ "

Alec has something sarcastic to say, of course, but Eliot's kissing him and he forgets to interrupt.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 13 @ Porn Battle for the prompt "undercover". Yes, the prompt definitely got away from me, as did the concept of 'comment fic'. Beta'd by the bestest sparrowshellcat and also the bestest maskedfangirl.


End file.
